I. CAPTAIN COOK & HIS VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY
A. BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL
The Definitive Reference To Cook's Life & Voyages
1. [COOK: BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. BEAGLEHOLE, J[ohn] C[awte] (editor). The Journals of Captain James Cook on His Voyages of Discovery [edited from the original manuscripts by J. C. Beaglehole, with the Assistance of J. A. Williamson, J. W. Davidson, and R. A. Skelton]. Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1955-1974. 9 vols., as follows:
Vol. I: The Voyage of the Endeavour 1768-1771. [2], cclxxxiv, [2], 684 pp., plates, maps (some folding). O’Reilly-Reitman 377. Rosove 78-1.A1 (first issue, “uncommon”).
Vol. II: The Voyage of the Resolution and Adventure 1772-1775. [4], clxx, 1021 pp., plates, maps (some folding). Meadows 270. O’Reilly-Reitman 394, 411, 412.
Rosove 78-3.A1 (first issue, “uncommon”).
Vol. III: The Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery 1776-1780. 2 parts in 2 vols. [Part I]: ccxxiv, 718 pp.; [Part II]: viii, [721]-1647 pp., plates, maps (some folding). Rosove 78-5.A1 (first issue, “uncommon”).
Vol. IV: The Life of Captain James Cook.... xi [1, blank], 760 pp., plates (some folding). Meadows 431.
Rosove 28.B1 (first issue, “uncommon”).
Portfolio: Charts & Views Drawn by Cook and His Officers and Reproduced from the Original Manuscripts.... viii pp., 58 charts & views. Meadows 270. Rosove 79-1.A1 (first issue, “scarce”).
Text vols.: 5 vols., 8vo, and 1 vol., folio, original navy blue gilt with gilt titles and medallion of Cook on front boards. Very fine in dust jackets with spines slightly sunned.
With 3 related imprints:
BEAGLEHOLE, J[ohn] C[awte] (editor). Addenda and Corrigenda to Volume I: The Voyage of the Endeavor, 1768-1771. Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1968. 12 pp. 8vo, original printed blue wrappers. Slightly stained, else very good. Rosove 78-2.A1.
BEAGLEHOLE, J[ohn] C[awte] (editor). Cook and the Russians: An Addendum to the Hakluyt Society’s Edition of the Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery, 1776-1780. London: Hakluyt Society, 1973. 9 pp. 8vo, original printed blue wrappers. Slightly creased, else very good. Rosove 78-6.A1. Spence 103.
BEAGLEHOLE, J[ohn] C[awte]. “Cook the Navigator.” Pp. 27-38. 8vo, original green printed wrappers. Slightly wrinkled, else good. Offprint from Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 314 (1969).
First editions. Beddie 227, 2106 & 4762. Hill I, pp. 62-63: “Some of the most important research ever done on the Pacific”; p. 383. Hill II:286, 367. National Maritime Museum: Voyages 571, 585, 593a. O’Reilly-Reitman, p. 57: “[Ces volumes] rendent pratiquement caduc tout ce qui a paru jusqu’alors au suject de ces 3 voyages de circumnavigation.” Spence 102. Strathern 125. The definitive reference to Cook's voyages and life containing extensive commentary, notes, and supporting documents drawn from his surviving holograph journals, along with writings of crew members and other sources. A stunning achievement of modern textual and historical scholarship that will never be superseded and which presents for the first time in print many sources previously available only in manuscript. (9 vols.) ($1,200-2,400)
2. [COOK: BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. BEDDIE, M. K. Bibliography of Captain James Cook R.N., F.R.S., Circumnavigator. The Library of New South Wales. 2nd Edition. Sydney: [Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales], 1970. xvi, 894 pp. 8vo, original blue cloth. Very fine in slightly wrinkled d.j.
Second edition, revised and extended (first edition, 1928) of the standard bibliography of Captain Cook and his associates, including realia and manuscript materials. An essential work. Rosove 29.C1: “An encyclopedic compendium.” ($20-40)
3. [COOK: BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. BISHOP MUSEUM. Brigham, William Tufts. Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History [wrapper title]. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1899, 1902, 1906, & 1906. 4 vols., folio, original tan printed wrappers. Consisting of four works by Brigham:
Hawaiian Feather Work. Vol. I, #1 (1899). 81, ii pp., 15 color and black and white plates, text illustrations.
Stone Implements and Stone Work of the Ancient Hawaiians. Vol. 1, #4 (1902). 100 pages, black and white plates, text illustrations.
Mat and Basket Weaving of the Ancient Hawaiians. Vol. II, #1 (1906). iv, 162 pp., black and white plates, text illustrations.
Old Hawaiian Carvings Found in a Cave on the Island of Hawaii. Vol. II, #2 (1906). 20 pp., text illustrations.
Some wrappers chipped and separated, some pages and plates chipped, but generally very good. Two with contemporary ink signature of Alice Kennedy on upper wrapper.
First editions. Forbes, Hawaiian National Bibliography 4995 (citing Vol. I, #1): “The first monograph on the subject.” A series of four original publications on Hawaiian antiquities by the distinguished scientist and educator, who was the museum’s first director and established its publication program. These publications are particularly valuable for the many illustrations they reproduce of fragile Hawaiian cultural artifacts. The Museum remains a premier Hawaiian cultural institution. (4 vols.) ($500-1,000)
4. [COOK: BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. CLARK, Thomas Blake. Omai: First Polynesian Ambassador to England: The True Story of His Voyage there in 1774 with Captain Cook; of How He Was Feted by Fanny Burney, Approved by Samuel Johnson, Entertained by Mrs. Thrale & Lord Sandwich and Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. [San Francisco]: Colt Press, 1940. [4], <115> [1, blank] pp., 1 photographic plate (portrait of Omai by Reynolds). 4to, original beige buckram over patterned rice paper over boards, printed spine label. Rice paper rubbed along edges, rear endpapers darkened, partly unopened.
First edition (limited edition, 500 copies). Beddie 4567. Hill I, p. 53. Hill II:301. O’Reilly-Reitman 501. Omai, brought to England in 1774 by Tobias Furneaux in the Adventure, was a cultural and social sensation who impressed royalty, literati, and socialites equally. He was returned to Tahiti in 1776 by Cook on his ill-fated third voyage. He was the first person from Tahiti to visit England and England’s first meaningful encounter with a living “noble savage.” ($100-200)
5. [COOK: BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. DU REITZ, Rolf. Bibliotheca Polynesiana: A Catalogue of Some of the Books in the Polynesiana Collection Formed by the Late Bjarne Kroepelien and Now in the Oslo University Library. Oslo: Heirs of Kroepelien, 1969. lxviii, [4], 455 pp., photographic frontispiece (portrait of Kroepelien), text printed in red and black. 4to, original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt, title stamped in gilt letters within red field on upper cover. Very fine, with prospectus/order form laid in.
First edition. Limited to 800 copies, of which 500 were for sale. This comprehensive collection sought “to bring together as many editions, impressions, issues and states as possible of each book or pamphlet in any way relating to, or printed in, French Polynesia. The Kroepelien collection is to a Pacific student what, for example, the Waller collection in Uppsala is to a student of the history of medicine” (introduction). Du Reitz’s introduction is a minor classic in the ongoing discussions of the difference between a descriptive bibliography and a catalogue. ($200-400)
6. [COOK: BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. HOLMES, Maurice. Captain James Cook, R.N., F.R.S.: A Bibliographical Excursion. London: Francis Edwards, 1952. 103 [1, blank] pp., 11 photographic plates (title pages). 8vo, original tan cloth, gilt-lettered spine. Spine faded, light uniform browning, text block slightly cracked.
Second edition (500 copies) of a work first published by Edwards in only 200 copies in 1936. Beddie 4761. Besterman I: 1480. O’Reilly-Reitman 359. Rosove 171.B1: “Scarce.” The work of a wiser and more accomplished bibliographer than was evident in the first edition, this book is one of the standard descriptive bibliographies of the literature in English relating to Cook’s voyages. ($100-200)
7. [COOK: BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. KING, Philip Gidley. Comments on Cook’s Log (H.M.S. Endeavor, 1770) with Extracts, Charts, and Sketches. April, 1891. Sydney: Charles Potter, 1892. [2], 30 pp., 22 plates (3 uncolored lithographed maps, 4 uncolored folded lithograph maps, 6 uncolored folded lithographed profiles, 3 uncolored lithographed profiles, 6 uncolored photographic views). 4to, contemporary purple pebble cloth with title gilt-lettered on upper cover, stapled as issued. Cloth faded, hinges starting but holding, endpapers browned, some plates uniformly lightly browned due to poor paper.
Second edition (first published Sydney, 1891). “Appendix A. Captain Cook’s Journal” (pp. 23-27) reprints an article from the October 18, 1890, Sydney Morning Herald concerning the various auctions of Cook’s original manuscript journal. Beddie 4784: “The log described is by C. Green and is held in the P. R. O., London.” Hocken, p. 416. Not in Hill or Forbes. Astronomer Charles Green (1735?-1771) was one of the valued civilian travellers aboard the Endeavor and was highly trusted by Cook for the accuracy of his observations. Beaglehole (I, pp. cxxxiii-cxxxiv) is very complimentary in his discussion of him. ($150-300)
8. [BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. SAMWELL, David. Captain Cook and Hawaii. San Francisco: David Magee; London: Francis Edwards, 1957. [6], x, [2], 2, 26, [2] 27-34, [2] 35-42 pp., 6 photographic plates (1 folded). 8vo, original red cloth, spine gilt, profile on front board, in plain white dust wrapper. Wrapper with minor tear and lightly browned, otherwise a very fine, mostly unopened copy.
Second edition, one of 750 copies printed by Lawton Kennedy. Beddie 1626. Kroepelien 1145. Samwell’s Narrative was first published London, 1786 (Beddie 1620, O’Reilly-Reitman 452) and is for the first time reprinted here. Samwell (1751-1798?) was a surgeon on Cook’s third voyage and supposedly an eye-witness to his death. The two main questions in the work that concerned earlier readers and now modern ones are the manner in which Cook died and whether his crews introduced venereal disease into the islands. On the former matter, Samwell believes that Cook perhaps died unnecessarily; on the latter matter, despite all evidence to the contrary, Samwell believes the disease existed in the islands before Cook arrived. ($100-200)
9. [BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. SKELTON, R[aleigh] A[shlin] (editor). James Cook, Surveyor of Newfoundland: Being a Collection of Charts of the Coast of Newfoundland and Labradore, & Drawn from Original Surveys Taken by James Cook and Michael Lane. London, Thomas Jefferys, 1769-1770. Reproduced in Fascimile from the Copy in the Library of the University of California at Los Angeles with an Introductory Essay by R. A. Skelton, Superintendent of the Map Room, British Museum. San Francisco: [text printed at Grabhorn Press, and charts printed at Meriden Gravure for] David Magee, 1965. <32> [2] pp., printed in red and black + 11 leaves of plates (10 fascimile charts, 6 of which are folding + facsimile title page) in portfolio. 2 vols., folio, original blue wrappers. Laid in publisher’s grey cloth box with gilt-lettered black leather spine label. Spine of portfolio slightly darkened, as usual, due to contact with cloth inside case, otherwise very fine.
Limited edition (365 sets). Beddie 1946. Grabhorn Press 649. Hill I, pp. 63-64. Hill II:370. The original charts from which the facsimiles were made are in the University of California at Los Angeles.
This survey of Newfoundland was Cook’s first substantial naval assignment and his first command of an expedition. Cook’s early experiences in the area were during the French and Indian War, when he was present at the reduction of Louisbourg. The area at the time was much disputed between France and England, and the knowledge of it that Cook gained during the surveys was highly important to his country as relations between the two countries remained strained following the French and Indian War. Treaty provisions gave France continued access to part of the area, but geographical knowledge was woefully inadequate, a situation Cook was sent to remedy.
Although understandably eclipsed by his later voyages, Beaglehole says of Cook’s work here: “Cook was to carry out many accomplished pieces of surveying, in one part of the world or another, but nothing he ever did later exceeded in accomplishment his surveys of the southern and western sides of Newfoundland from 1763-1767” (Vol. V, p. 69). As Bernard de Voto remarks, because of this survey, when Cook finally surveyed the western American coast, he became the first man in history to know how wide North America really is (Course of Empire). For a detailed discussion of the contemporary publications of Cook’s North American surveys and of their importance, see R. A. Skelton & R. V. Tooley, “The Marine Surveys of James Cook in North America, 1758-1768,” in R. V. Tooley, The Mapping of America (London: Holland, 1980), pp. [173]-206. ($400-800)
10. [BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. ZIMMERMANN, Henry. Zimmermann’s Account of the Third Voyage of Captain Cook, 1776-1780. Translatedc by Miss U. Tewsley...With a Few Explanatory Notes.... Wellington: W. A. G. Skinner, Government Printer, 1926. Alexander Turnbull Library Bulletin #2. 49 pp., text illustrations (title pages), 2 photographic plates (Death of Cook), folded map. 8vo, original grey printed wrappers, stapled. Small stain at lower right, otherwise very good.
First edition in English of Zimmermann’s work, based on the Mannheim, 1781, edition. Beaglehole III, p. ccvi. Beddie 1634. O’Reilly-Reitman 425. Strathern 631(iii). Wickersham 6573d. This is a different translation from that done by Michaelis and French (see item 10 below). ($100-200)
11. [BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUPPORTING MATERIAL]. ZIMMERMANN, Heinrich. Zimmermann’s Captain Cook. An Account of the Third Voyage of Captain Cook around the World, 1776-1780, by Henry Zimmermann...and Translated from the Mannheim Edition of 1781 by Elsa Michaelis and Cecil French. Toronto: Ryerson, [1930]. xiv, [4], 120 pp., photographic frontispiece (scene), 1 folded map, text illustrations (title pages, maps). 8vo, original blue cloth, spine gilt-lettered, device gilt on upper cover, partly unopened. Spine spotted and faded, cloth faded and spotted, interior very clean. A very good copy.
Limited edition (#234 of 250 copies). Beaglehole III, p. ccvi. Beddie 1635. O’Reilly-Reitman 426. Strathern 631(iv). This is the second translation into English, the first being published in 1926 (see item 10 above). The four charts by Lieutenant James Burney appear here for the first time, and the documentation is considerably more extensive than in the 1926 edition. ($150-300)
B. COOK’S THREE VOYAGES
“Cook earned his place in history by opening up the Pacific to western civilization” (Printing & the Mind of Man)
First Voyage
12. HAWKESWORTH, John. An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and Successively Performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Cartaret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavor: Drawn up from the Journals which Were Kept by the Several Commanders, and from the Papers of Joseph Banks, Esq.... London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1773. 4 vols. as follows: